"Cleanliness is next to Godliness." We can no more seek God's blessings with an unclean body than with an unclean mind. - Young India, November 19, 1925This oft quoted saying of Mahatma Gandhi keeps coming back, to inspire and motivate. Gandhiji's devotion to a clean and healthy India, is brought out in this comprehensive title. Interwoven with quotes and photographs, this book gives an insight into Gandhiji's thoughts and writings on the importance of sanitation.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Internet users in the United States at the second spot on the list of readers of books and writings on Mahatma Gandhi, even though he never visited America in his lifetime, showed an analytics report of a prominent website on the Father of the Nation.According to a Google Analytics report of website www.mkgandhi.org, majority of online readers or researchers on Mahatma Gandhi belong to India, while the US comes at the second place in terms of page viewing, downloading, e-book reading and downloading, designer of the website, Rajesh Shinde said referring to the findings.Google Analytics is a ‘freemium’ web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic.The United Nations has declared Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary as International Non-violence Day, being observed today the world over.Launched in 1998, www.mkgandhi.org is a comprehensive website by Gandhian institutions, operated and updated by city-based trust Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal, which works to promote and spread the work by and on Mahatma Gandhi through seminars, workshops, meetings, youth camps among others.The website comes at the first place in the search results on Google, out of the 11,90,00,000 results, Shinde said.“The real time analysis of the online presence of the readers shows that the content of Gandhi or by Gandhi, are read and downloaded in all the 204 countries across the globe and netizens in the US always come to second after India,” he said.“In the last six years, there have been over 10 million downloads of e-books, out of which Indians had over six million downloads while 2.5 million downloads came from the US,” he added.“As per the report, on average annual basis, users from Pakistan varies from 18th to 20th position, which reflects the significance of the freedom fighter in that country,” Mandal’s managing trustee Tulsidas Somaiya said.He said seeing the popularity of digital era, especially mobile apps, the mandal has started converting more than 150 books related to Mahatma Gandhi into e-books supporting epub, pdf and mobi domains.According to web statistics report for the portal for the month of September, the most searched and researched topics on Gandhi are Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, India Dreams, Story of My life, Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies and The Murder of Mahatma, Somaiya said.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

According to me the economic constitution of India and, for the matter of that, the world should be such that no one under should suffer from want of food and clothing. In other words, everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two ends meet.

And this ideal can universally realized only if the means of production of the elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the masses. These should be freely available to all as God’s air and water are or ought to be; they should not be made vehicle of traffic for the exploitation of others. This monopolization by any country, nation or group of persons would be unjust. The neglect of this simple principle is the cause of destitution that we witness today not only in this unhappy land but other parts of the world too.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Gandhi Journal Article-III ( November 2016 )

Mahatma Gandhi and The Polaks

By Prabha Ravi Shankar

South Africa was the crucible that forged Gandhi's identity as a political activist. it was an important prelude to his return to his motherland in 1915 where he dominated the national movement for more than two decades. Amongst the early and closest friends of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa, now largely forgotten, were an English couple named Henry Polak and Millie Polak. Henry zoos a radical English Jew, Millie was a Christian feminist. Polak was Gandhi's closest political aide and fellow-seeker. Even after their return to England in 1916, the Polaks continued to take much interest in India's future and kept a close association with Gandhi until the latter's death in 1948. Despite his yeomen services to India and close relationship with Gandhi, there is no in-depth study on Gandhi and Polak. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Gandhi Journal Article-II ( November 2016 )

Gandhi's concept of Trusteeship

By C.S. Dharmadhikari

Today the word ‘management’ has acquired a magical implication. Presently, the wind of globalization is blowing at a high speed. Hence, new dimensions are being added to the concept of management almost on a daily basis. This is the age of experts and specialists. Consequently, in the field of management, technological innovation is giving a new momentum to an efficient and dexterous functioning. Thus, like in many other fields, different departments and sub-departments are being founded endlessly. Financial marketing, human resource management, and similar other areas are emerging as its important branches. Not only that, even the idea of micro-specialisation and super specialisation is fast emerging in the arena of management studies.

.....Gandhi rejected such a perspective on man and his nature in his scheme of things. He had greater faith in self-regulations than all the external controls put together. Besides, he was also a great votary of cultural and spiritual tradition and its major ethics. He accepted and promoted one of the major spiritual values of Indian tradition: Man is not a fallen being as he has not committed any ‘original sin.’ Rather he carries a speck of divinity in his persona. Hence certain godly tendencies are very much inherent in his personality. It is on account of self-forgetfulness that certain ungodly tendencies get attached to his thought and action. Hence, one has to get rid of the veil of avidya to know and feel his true self. Once that is achieved, he comes into his true form. It was such a perspective which made Gandhi a trusting person. He always believed in the basic goodness of man and his capacity to move towards perfection by overcoming some of his apparent weaknesses. To that end, he presented his ekadash vrata to be imbibed and followed. It was from such a perspective that he looked at the entire question of management of men and material in our times. He did not believe in reward and punishment being the basic principle behind human action, as it is based on the heart-wrenching feeling of fear and greed.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Gandhi Journal Article-I ( November 2016 )

Some of Gandhi's Early Views on Africans Were Racist. But That Was Before He Became Mahatma

By E S Reddy

Gandhi with the leaders of the non-violent resistance movement in South Africa

The recent agitation at the University of Legon in Ghana for the removal of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi was provoked by a few statements made by the young Gandhi soon after he arrived in South Africa in 1893, long before he came to know the Africans. These statements, plucked from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi – published by the Indian government without any attempts at contextualising or annotating them – completely distort what his life represents.

Gandhi said, “My life is my message”. His life shows how an ordinary human being who has many weaknesses can rise to great heights by shedding his early prejudices and by adhering to love and non-violence instead of hate and greed. This message should be an encouragement for the youth.

Gandhi practiced what he preached. He conquered fear and defied the racist regime in South Africa and in imperialist Britain. He went to prison five times in South Africa and nine times in India during his struggle against racism and colonialism. He was incorruptible and forsook consumerism, which had become a menace to progress. He espoused dignity of labour and the need to protect the environment. He became a symbol of peace and non-violence and his appeal is universal.